What was she doing?

Celes didn’t know anymore. Not really. She was going to get her life together. She was going to build something that she never could have before, and maybe, just maybe, she was going to be happy. Now she didn’t know. What was she going to do about the Dragonblades? About the life she’d built? About Caius?

What was she doing? She couldn’t answer the question.

The Wyvern’s Rest was nearly empty that day. Cancelled for rain. It had been raining an awful lot lately, but she supposed that was tropical weather for you. A few mercenaries had stopped by looking for work, but that was it. No training when there was mud. No slipping and embarrassing herself if she could help it. She sat on one the couches, half-sprawled sideways with a book in her hand in a lame attempt to distract herself from thoughts that dominated her mind.

Would she have been better off in that other world -- ruined and miserable and waiting for death? At least then she’d been trying to help people. Then again, she’d also been preparing for a suicide mission against a mad god so who was the winner here, really?

There was a knock on the door.

Celes sat up, startled. A look out the window showed that there was a break from the rain. Maybe someone had thought it was a good time to stop by? Still, the sudden noise had her heart racing. Stupid. She stood, dog-earring her book as she set it aside. She wasn’t in that world anymore. So why did she still smell the ghost of sulfur?

Celes opened the door a crack, peering outside. She’d expected some bulky man with a half-dulled broadsword and a grizzled beard -- trying too hard like so many of the others. Instead, she found a girl. She was shorter than Celes and smaller too. She was dressed for combat sans armor, and Celes blinked at her.

”Er. Can I help you?”

Not the best way to greet a prospective client, was it?

”Oh. I mean…” Celes opened the door wider. ”Come in. Before it starts raining again.” She gestured lamely inside and then stood back, crossing her arms. Nice. She could do nice. And welcoming. And helpful. Why was it that Caius always had her manning the desk again?

”This is the Wyvern’s Rest,” she said. ”Home of the Dragonblades. We take all kinds of cases.” She wasn’t used to people knocking, she realized. That’s why she didn’t know what she was saying. Usually they just shoved the doors open and marched right to her, and she could give them a hard look like they should have knocked, and that put her on the upper foot. Instead, this girl had actually done what she was supposed to.

Well that was...polite.

”I’m Celes.” Celes nodded towards her. ”And you are?”

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The girl seemed friendly enough, and Celes nodded back in kind. ”Nice to meet you.” She didn’t really have much else to say to Jessie -- not upfront at least. She tried to keep on as professional a face as she could. She was tired.

”Caius isn’t here right now. He's out on some adventure or another, I imagine. I can’t keep track of all the jobs he takes, and that’s my job. Keeping track of them, I mean.” She paused. Why did this woman want Caius so badly? Well, maybe badly wasn’t the right word, but it seemed a little strange to come all this way just looking for him.

”Why do you ask?” He’d probably helped her before -- whatever trouble they’d gotten themselves into. That sounded like Caius. Celes was beginning to wonder if the whole world didn’t know him at this point. Celes was starting to feel popular by association.

That was a new feeling. The closest she’d come to “popular” before was “infamous”.

”If there’s something you need help with, I should be able to handle it just as well. Or I can find someone who can manage it a little better. We have a master healer, gunner, martial artist, and I think a knight? Caius wasn’t really clear on that one.”

Or what exactly a ’knight’ entailed. Celes imagined it a Magiteck knight, and that did nothing for her mood. Oh good, someone else like her. Maybe they could be friends.

”So what do you need? Or were you really just here to see him?” Celes smiled awkwardly. ”Caius is a little better with a sword than friends.” If it really was a casual visit then that would be a first.

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Caius had helped Jessie fight monsters along the coast. Now that sounded like the Caius she knew. The girl seemed fond of him, and now that she knew the story, that didn’t seem so strange either. Caius might have been a fumbling mess with people, but he knew how to handle a sword and just about everything to do with it. He was persuasive in a way that she could never be. He knew how to catch someone’s interest, and he was always looking to take them under his wing. She admired that about him, she supposed.

She might have been more logical, but she couldn’t think of a single other thing that she knew better than he did.

”Well, you’re in the right place,” she said. She tried for a welcoming smile. She wasn’t very good at it. ”I used to be a general so I handle most of the training around here. Not that I know much about guns. We have a range out back for archery and things like that. Caius uses it sometimes.” So it must have been just as good for firearms, right? She didn’t know.

”Now, if you want to learn a sword, that's where I can help you. We’re not busy. The rain made sure of that.” She looked out the window towards the cloudy, misted skies. The rain hadn’t come back yet, and with the tropical weather maybe it never would, but that didn’t mean that she was expecting much business either way. ”I’ll show you around.”

She left out the back, making sure that she was following. Really, this was probably the best she could have expected. She was bored. There wasn’t anyone around. She’d just have wasted her time all day otherwise.

”I’m sure you didn’t read it wrong,” Celes said. ”Caius likes people. It’s just that he’s a little clumsy without a sword in his hand.” She smiled, a little more genuinely this time. If he could wield words the same way that he could wield a blade then the Dragonblades would be full to bursting by now. ”I’ll let him know you came by. I’m sure he’ll appreciate it.”

The training yard was a little muddy, but Celes’ high boots kept her dry, and it looked like Jessie was dressed practically enough. They passed the sword-scarred dummies and the ring for sparring before Jessie brought her to the very back where Caius had set up a target range. It wasn’t much -- just a set of circularly carved boards of painted woods kept at a distance -- but Caius seemed to think it was enough so she hoped the girl wouldn’t be too disappointed.

”This is what he uses,” Celes said. ”I know it’s not much, but…”

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”With the Dragonblades? Oh about…” How long had it been? It felt like forever. ”A year?” She’d go with that.

”We started it together. It was hard, living as a mercenary on our own. We’re not from here. It was a shock.” To say the least. It had taken her longer than she wanted to admit, getting used to the clean air and green earth. Even the quiet chirping of birds or the rustle of leaves had set her on edge. It had all felt like a surreal dream -- a product of her broken imagination.

At this point, she didn’t much care if she’d gone crazy. This was her life. There was no way she would ever let anything drag her back into her old one.

”But we worked together for a while and eventually decided that we’d try to make something of it. Most of the men who come by are just trying to make a name for themselves, but we’ve been able to help plenty of people like us. Even if it’s just to orient them a little.”

That was the best part, Celes thought. She’d had the ’this is where you are, this is what’s happening’ talk more times than she could count, but it always felt a little rewarding, guiding them through it. She wished that she’d had someone to do the same. Instead, she’d woken up in a forest that shouldn’t have existed and had wandered her way out into a confusing world which meant absolutely nothing to her. She wouldn’t wish that on anyone.

Or most anyone at least. She knew a few people who she’d rather like to get dragged into a dimensional hole never to be seen again.

Celes laughed at Jessie’s assessment of their training yard. ”That’s us. Nothing fancy.” Celes wouldn’t have known how to be fancy if she’d tried. She’d grown up in the military, after all. Even at its flashiest, it was all about practicality.

”You want to learn a sword?” she asked, mildly surprised. She’d offered, of course, but she hadn’t expected her to agree. Most people didn’t. Particularly not someone with training in something else like magic or guns. Celes straightened. It wasn’t often that someone took an interest in what she did. Not willingly, anyway.

”It’s not a problem at all,” she said, smiling. ”Like I said, I didn’t have much to do today anyway. I usually train the mercenaries in combat, but they’re…” She searched for the word. ”Stubborn.”

Indignant. Prideful. Unwilling to properly listen or even fully believe that she had skills to listen to.

Men.

”We have plenty of extra swords if you want to start now. There’s longswords, shortswords, rapiers…” She gestured to the storage space where they kept them. ”Well, they’re over there if you want to look at them. Some are easier to handle than others.”

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